Cover

Title Page, Copyright, Series Page

Contents

Illustrations

Series Editor’s Preface

In Between the Brown and the Red: Nationalism, Catholicism, and Communism
in Twentieth-Century Poland—The Politics of Bolesław Piasecki,
Mikołaj Stanisław Kunicki views the tangled political history of postwar
Poland through the machinations of a pivotal, if relatively minor, political
figure, Bolesław Piasecki. ...

Preface

The concept of this book began taking shape in the fall of 1998. At that
time, I was pursuing a doctoral degree in European history at Stanford University.
My advisor, Norman Naimark, suggested to me a dissertation topic.
Out of my interest in the relationship of nationalism and communism in
Eastern Europe ...

Abbreviations

Guide to Pronunciation

Introduction

In a climactic scene from Andrzej Munk’s 1960 film Bad Luck (Zezowate
szczęście), the protagonist, Jan Piszczyk—a young, shy, clumsy man studying
law at Warsaw University—finds himself at the forefront of a political
demonstration. The year is 1938, and proregime students are urging Poland’s
strongman, Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły, ...

1. The Early Years, 1915–35

Reborn in 1918 after more than 120 years of foreign rule, independent
Poland faced a number of challenges. The extent of its territory was not
finally determined until 1921, with the signing of a peace treaty with Bolshevik
Russia and a ceasefire agreement with Germany following the third
Silesian uprising.1 ...

2. The National Radical Movement, 1934–39

On the morning of July 7, 1934, the ONR prisoners marched into the
camp at Bereza Kartuska in an atmosphere of romantic adventure, singing
nationalist songs. They saw themselves as another generation of revolutionaries
for whom incarceration in the dungeons of Castello Sant’Angelo,
Kufstein, ...

3. The War Years, 1939–44

War forced Piasecki to become a soldier, yet he never ceased to be a
politician. At a time when the fate of nations depended on military superiority,
he had the ambition to build a political army whose strength relied on
ideology rather than on numbers of soldiers and the power of weapons. ...

4. Under the Cross and the Red Flag, 1945–56

Piasecki’s incarceration by the communists and his subsequent release
were turning points in his life. The decision of Poland’s new rulers to
exonerate and support a man whose credentials included chauvinistic nationalism,
anti-Semitism, and anticommunism was in fact less paradoxical than
it seemed. ...

5. Years of Hope and Disappointment,1956–67

Three years after the death of Stalin, the Polish People’s Republic
experienced the gravest crisis of its sociopolitical system to that point. By
the end of 1956, the country had experienced a war at the top of the party
leadership, a bloody revolt among the workers of Poznań, the specter of
Soviet military intervention, ...

6. The Last Crusade, 1967–68

Józef Piłsudski once remarked that he had alighted from the socialist
streetcar at the stop called nationalism. Years later, Gomułka and his comrades
decided to merge the communist and nationalist tracks, thus accelerating
the metamorphosis of Polish communism. ...

7. The Exit of the Crusader, 1970–79

In 1972, while speaking to his collaborators, Piasecki acknowledged:
“This is the best leadership of the party and the state we have ever had in the
history of People’s Poland. But then the question is: if such a leadership
does not esteem PAX and its role, then which one will?”1 ...

Conclusion

The ability of the communists to attract nationalists and to nationalize
their societies without conceding their monopoly on power is one of the
most interesting aspects of Eastern Europe in the postwar period. As the
Italian socialist Ignazio Silone remarked on one occasion, “The first thing
that the communists nationalize is socialism.”1 ...

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